On alighting, however, he was instantly all 

 nerve and tension. "With the utmost caution he 

 came over the high sedges on his stilt-like legs 

 to the brink of the creek and posed. I doubt if 

 a frog or a minnow could have told he was a 

 thing of life. Stiff as a stub, every muscle taut, 

 all alert, he stood, till— flash ! and the long 

 pointed bill pinned a perch, a foot and a half 

 beneath the water. He had quite made out a 

 breakfast, when, stepping upon a tall tussock, he 

 stood face to face with me— a human spectator ! 

 It was only for a moment that I could keep mo- 

 tionless enough to puzzle him. Some muscle 

 must have twitched, for he understood and 

 leaped into the air with a croak of mortal fright. 



II 



The creek was roped off by the sagging fox 

 grape-vines, and barred, from this point on, by 

 the alders, so that I gave up all attempt at far- 

 ther ascent. I had already given up the mink ; 

 yet I waited under the beeches. 



It was blazing overhead, growing hotter and 

 closer all the time, with hardly breeze enough to 

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